Well I finally made the plunge last week to move forward on a E53 LSX swap. I currently build and sell E39 BMW Swap Kits and have always wanted to do something with the E53. The car has been picked up from the auction and should arrive at my house on Tuesday and will be a slow build but wanted to start a thread to document everything in case anyone else wants to follow suit with their own build. The car popped up on one of my auction sites as a repossession with a mechanical problem and still a clean title. My guess is something timing related failed chains, guides etc. and caused the owner to give it back to the finance company.

I'm going to attempt to do a LQ4/LQ9 4l80e drop in to see if you can use the factory front dress and intake manifold from a truck pullout to clear our hoods which will make this build much more cost effective. This car belonged to a member on this forum for quite sometime til he sold it on Ebay in 2013. I shot him a PM to get more info on the truck but it looks like he hasn't been on the site in over a year. His user name was zsx5o3. If anyone has any questions along the build feel free to post them in here and I will try to answer them for you.

Here are some pics. I can't wait to see the Imola Red Interior in person!

Unless your planning on doing an LSX swap I would just buy one privately. There is so much to go wrong on these vehicles that not inspecting the vehicle in person or getting a ppi before buying something like that could really come back to bite you in the butt. I have seen some local for around $6,000 running and driving and $8,000 that look to be in really great shape with full documentation. They have really started to come down in price in the last year.